Bringing the crack since December 2003

DARK X-MEN: THE CONFESSION #1 and UNCANNY X-MEN #515

Three pages from DARK X-MEN: THE CONFESSION #1 (focusing on one half of the confessions) and one page from UNCANNY X-MEN #515.

Before the final battle in UTOPIA, Scott and Emma hash out their secrets. Most of Emma's secrets Scott already knew, although Emma has no real explanation for her actions. Even "protecting her students" is hollow to her. It's like she does bad things just to do them, such as killing her sister. (More on that later.) No mention of her killing Firestar's horse, though.

Scott's big secret is X-Force. The new "Killing is fun!" X-Force.(Art by Bing Cansino.)

This is pretty much the same reason Iron Man and Captain America put Wolverine in the New Avengers. I wonder if it bothers Logan that some people just want him around to kill the bad guys.

This is uncomfortably close to what I read when I skimmed today's MS. MARVEL. One character comments how certain heroes never "closed the deal" (re: murder) the bad guys, and that's why the "previous" Avengers were failures.

X-FORCE doesn't interest me these days, although I am curious about NECROSHA.

Hey, let's explore some of those principals Scott was talking about with Greg Land attempting to do non-Porn Face.

"C'mon Professor, it's not like I'm asking a secret Black-Ops team of mutants to kill villains.""What?""...Nothing..."

Going back to Emma... It's not like she has done the "Bad Things" she has done just to do them. She's not Sabretooth, or even Magneto. Sabretooth likes (liked?) killing people, and Magneto killed too many people to even think it was somehow for "the good of mutantkind."

It reminds me of what Voldemort (aka He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) does a little too often in his stories: Villain A says to Hero B: "I do bad things because I'm a bad person. What's your excuse?" Every bad guy doesn't have to be a Nietzsche Wannabe (from TV Tropes).

I don't know if you mean it's an awesome name because it's a reference to something that I don't know about or because it's just a really cool name. If it's the latter, then hell to the yes, I agree with you. Apparently he's going to be the next artist on X-Factor, so that's pretty darn cool. :D

On the whole, I don't have a problem with the idea of the X-Men killing when they have to. Claremont handled those situations very, very well. There's a difference between having somebody who will act permanently if the situation calls for it and having a motherfucking assassination squad!

I wouldn't mind Dark Reign nearly so much if the heroics of our alleged heroes were allowed to shine that much more.

For the most part. Four damn dollars for something that reads like one of those free Saga recap books. In the end, they express their undying love in each other--seriously, read any old Scott/Jean over the top rote romance scene and just plug in Emma--and belief in the stupid crap they're both up to.

It amazes me how far the X-books have come this plot and Cyclops reign of power. Despite his claims he has to do certain things and has no other options, the writers continuously enforce that status quo by not lncluding the view points of other prominent and powerful characters like Professor X, Storm, Beast, amongst others. Scott has seemingly gone into this decisions without consulting anyone other than his attack dog Wolverine.

The lack of logic and coherancy is mind boggling. My only hope is that when the writers finally decided to end this course of thinking, they will make Scott pay for his poor decisions. I wouldn't mind him being kicked off or fired from the X-men and either become a rogue loner, maybe Emma can go with him, or take his X-Force and join the military, I guess America's and get a license to serve and protect as he so wishes.

And I want to see hope again in the X-books. That's all. No more darkness and death, for a long time.

I haven't been a serial fan of the X-Men, but hasn't Darkness and Death been their bread and butter since, well, at least Claremont? I'm not disagreeing, the story of the mutants NEEDS hope because it is pretty much comic's longest running metaphors for racial/sexual acceptance (whether they have actually succeeded is something entirely different). Considering how many genocides and such that mutants have gone through, one would hope that Hope is the enduring message. Nothing makes hope burn the brighter than conflict, and that's something the X-books have always provided...especially considering how many cosmic threats they've faced.

Side point: I've always wondered why X-Men seem to be the most cosmic of the Marvel heroes, on par with the Fantastic Four. It just seems like a strange idea, when really I think it should focus more on the more domestic...because they already have enough on their plates.

The Mutant Massacre was THE event back in the 80's which made darkness and death the stars but it was done right and lasted only an arc. The following decades made strides into walking away from the doom and gloom, and expanding the X-stories, making characters grow up, seeing new members join, and seeing mutants join the broader Marvel universe.

Sadly, the warped mind of Grant Morrison thought the x-books needed a shock to the system and created a mutant genocide to sell his new brand of storytelling at Marvel and change the status quo of the X-men. The writers that have followed seem to have tried very hard to imitate that style. Decimation then made things a lot worse and now Dark Reign isn't inspiring a lot of hope right now.

This morbidity is a recent trend, I think, and a company wide directive, all to make the mutant plight even more desperate and urgent. Sadly, the stories thus far have made things worse and have been single minded in their vision. The X-men and the mutant population they are protecting have had to isloate themselves from society, segragating themselves from humanity and they increasingly become more of an army, than the family that made so many fall in love with them in the first place.

Sadly, the warped mind of Grant Morrison thought the x-books needed a shock to the system and created a mutant genocide to sell his new brand of storytelling at Marvel and change the status quo of the X-men.

I don't agree with that entirely. For all his faults, Morrison did far more to create the sense of an actual mutant culture than any writer who came before. For a brief, shining period (Morrison's run right up until Decimation) the X-Men really seemed to fit into the Marvel Universe because they fully grew into their niche, and a lot of that was because of Morrison.

I dunno. . . when mutants where teenage runaways in pre-Giuliani New York, living in sewers because they were as terrified by society as society was terrified by them, that's when they were a metaphor for something. Most everything since then has just been a nod in the general direction of metaphor. With lots of explosions! And stabbings!

As for the other thing, I think they actually exceed the F4 for being cosmic heroes. The Shi'ar are now officially the dominant inter-galactic empire in the Marvel U, and they seem to have always had a mutants-only diplomacy policy with Earth. I agree that it's strange.

I disagree. It's not so much about the Darkness and Death as with Dealing With It. X-Men comics at their best, have a simple message: "Yes, life sucks, yes, it's not fair, but you know what? You are more powerful than you know, and you can deal with it."

We have the first half of that in spades. Can we get to the second part now?

The X-Men (and mutant kind) have faced off over the years against a large number of genocidal bastards and lunatics over the years from both sides of the divide. they know, for a fact, that these nutjobs will win if left unchecked.

Thanks to the stupidity of M-Day, the flatscans have a non-trivial chance of exterminating mutants "forever".

And back in the day, whenever a threat was brought to the boil it'd show up, slaughter X number of people in a massively showy fashion and get seen off in a fight that inevitably caused hundreds of thousands, and more likely millions, in property damage and bad PR.

A pre-emptive black ops team isn't only the sensible approach, it's the responsible one.

Yeah, in all honesty I don't fault Cyclops decision to form X-Force. When the uber-Sentinel wiped out Genosha it was horrible, but there were still a ton of mutants (and more being born virtually every day). Now there's a pathetically insignificant number (in the grand scheme of things) and as noted, some of these extreme hate groups have a very real chance of wiping out mutantkind seemingly forever.

Cyclops and the X-Men can't afford to wait around for one of these groups to pick off one or two or a dozen of the remaining mutants just so they can be "justified" to fight back.

Now...putting all your people on an island in San Francisco Bay? I'm having a hard time figuring out the tactical and strategic soundness of that plan. You may as well artfully arrange the buildings and hedgerows into a giant bullseye.

That or hope to god that one of these higher-tech hate groups don't come up with a stealth-bomb. Or that Norman Osborn doesn't convince the public that you're a genuine threat to national security. Or any number of scenarios where it's a whole lot easier to kill the remaining mutant population when they're all holed up in one place.

You've found them. You know they're out to at the very least destroy your lives if not outright exterminate your species.

How many times have you stopped -- the "old fashioned way" -- Magneto (with and without Acolytes) and/or Sinister and/or Trask and/or Apocalypse and/or any number of other genocidal lunatics at the cost of how many lives and how much collateral damage and how much setting back of your cause everytime these fights go public?

Did M-Day remove the genetic potential for mutation from everybody else on the planet? Because if it didn't, then it's highly unlikely that anyone could 'wipe out' mutantkind short of advanced forced eugenics, worldwide.

Most indications are that it did...almost. Mutants were being born almost every day prior to M-day. After M-Day, mutant births ceased until Hope was born, but she seems to have been a special case as there's been no indication that any others have cropped up since then.

So in short, no, it doesn't appear that humanity is spawning mutants anymore, at least at the moment.

It goes a long to show just how insecure Emma has always been. This is the woman who while good looking never thought of herself as beautiful. first using her powers to augment her looks before earning enough to have surgery.

She loved her students but expressed that love like an over protective parent (think the witch from Into the Woods) because she sure as hell didnt get any from her father.

she has grown as a character, but still thinks of herself as nothing, she plays the part of the White Queen, but feels like a fool.

all in all excellent issue, parts of the end seemed a bit corny, but i can overlook that very easily.

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